The directing team of Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, a.k.a. ricki+annie–who received accolades for their documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and is currently in theatrical release–has joined the roster of kaboom productions for commercials and branded content projects. This marks the first spotmaking roost for the helming duo whose earlier credits include the documentaries The Devil Came On Horseback and The Trials of Darryl Hunt.
The latter, which centered on a rape/murder case and a wrongly convicted man, screened at the 2006 Sundance Fest where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, earned nominations for a Spirit Award as well as a News and Documentary Emmy, and was shortlisted for the ’07 Academy Awards in the documentary category. The Devil Came On Horseback, which explores the genocide in Darfur through the eyes of a former U.S. marine who returns home to raise awareness of the horrific situation, won the Witness Award at the ’07 Silverdocs Documentary Festival and earned a News and Documentary Emmy nomination.
Currently ricki+annie are wrapping Burma Soldier for HBO, a feature documentary about a former junta member and Burmese soldier who puts himself at risk to become a pro-democracy activist.
Adding the Joan Rivers documentary to this filmography reflects a far reaching directorial range spanning serious, sensitive, substantive subject matter as well as celebrity culture and stand-up comedy, offering a broad creative palette to the ad community.
“We like to tell stories–whether in short or long-form–and commercials are a natural extension of that for us,” related Stern. “You can make emotional as well as humorous connections with your audience through advertising, setting a tone and atmosphere. That’s always been appealing to us.”
Sundberg said of the commercialmaking discipline, “There’s something joyful about turning something around quickly. Documentaries can be years in the making. As a change of pace, there’s satisfaction in seeing something come to fruition in a short time like a commercial or a branded short film. And doing something in shorthand which at times requires a compression of visuals and graphics you don’t get the chance to experiment with in long-form verite documentaries presents a new creative challenge, a different way for us to tell stories.”
Ricki+Annie are hardly strangers to short-form fare. In the past they have directed campaigns for agency client pitches and are slated to direct a series of spots for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Inspire Action Project,” designed to inspire the public to act on the issues they care most about. Ricki+annie are partnering with the Sundance Institute, GOOD, TED and UCLA on a multi-platform launch scheduled for later this year. The assignment grew out of ricki+annie’s ongoing involvement in a documentary about the breakthrough educational program YouthBuild, which is helping to better the lives of high school students in a rough, violent north Philadelphia neighborhood.
“Can we talk?”
The Joan Rivers documentary came about rather quickly and unexpectedly. Through her parents, Stern knew Rivers and called her after the completion of The Devil Came On Horseback. At the time Rivers was launching a play in London about her life, and rather immediately ricki+annie found themselves following and filming the famed comedian for some 14 months, initially working to gain financing for the project which they had already embarked upon. While the nature of the documentary evolved, the constant theme remained of it being an insightful look at the quintessential life of an aging comedian, and her continuing need to perform.
The film has sparked a new chapter in Rivers’ career, while bringing further attention to the filmmaking talents of ricki+annie. “With documentaries, you don’t always get the opportunity to shoot beautiful imagery,” observed Stern. “This [Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work] is the closest we’ve come to being able to more stylistically convey our vision.”
Interest in the duo for commercials heightened, and they ultimately gravitated to Lauren Schwartz, founder/executive producer of kaboom, which maintains shops in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ricki+annie knew Schwartz dating back to their college days together at Dartmouth.
“There’s a longstanding friendship and trust there,” said Sundberg of the relationship with Schwartz. “She gets our films and the way we work. She is also enthusiastic about bringing a filmmaking team of women into advertising, and sees a need in the marketplace for what we can offer.”
For their documentary and longer form projects, ricki+annie continue to maintain New York-based Break Thru Films, which they opened in 1990.
